The Secret Speech ld-2

by Tom Rob Smith

  Iakov answered with a question:

  — How long have you been on board?

  Genrikh smiled, relieved to have solicited a response:

  — Seven years. And things have changed. I don’t know if they’ve changed for the better. These voyages used to be something…

  — How so?

  — You know… all kinds of… good times. You know what I mean? Genrikh smiled to underscore the oblique innuendo. Iakov’s face was impassive:

  — No. What do you mean?

  Genrikh was forced to explain. He lowered his voice, whispering, trying to coax Iakov into his conspiracy:

  — Normally, around day two or three, the guards—

  — The guards? You’re a guard.

  A careless slip: he’d implied he was outside the group and now he was being asked whether that was the case. He clarified:

  — I mean me, us. We.

  Emphasizing the word—we—and then saying it again for good measure.

  — We talk to the urki, to see if they’re willing to make us an offer, a list of names, a list of the politicals, someone who’d said something stupid. We ask what they’d want in return for this information: alcohol, tobacco… women.

  — Women?

  — You heard of “taking the train”?

  — Remind me.

  — The line of men who take their turn, with the female convicts. I was always the last carriage, so to speak. You know, of the train of men, who took their turn.

  He laughed:

  — Last was better than nothing, that’s what I say.

  He paused, looking out at sea, hands on his hips, longing to scrutinize Iakov’s reaction. He repeated, nervously:

  — Better than nothing.

  Squinting in the dim dusk light, Timur Nesterov studied the face of this young man as he boasted about his history of rape. The man wanted to be patted on the back, congratulated and assured that those times were the good times. Timur’s cover as a prison guard, as officer Iakov Messing, depended upon remaining invisible. He couldn’t stand out. He couldn’t kick up a fuss. He was not here to judge this man or to avenge those women. Yet it was difficult not to imagine his wife as a convict aboard this ship. In the past she’d come very close to being arrested. She was beautiful and she would’ve ended up at the mercy of this young man’s desire.

  Timur tossed the cigarette into the sea, moving indoors. He was almost at the tower door when the guard called out after him:

  — Thanks for the smoke!

  Timur stopped, wondering at this muddle of manners and flippant savagery. To his eye, Genrikh was more like a child than a man. Just as a child might try to impress an adult, the young officer pointed up to the sky:

  — Going to be a storm.

  Night was closing, and in the distance flashes of lightning silhouetted black clouds — clouds shaped like the knuckles of a giant fist.

  SAME DAY

  LYING ON HIS BACK IN THE DARKNESS, Leo listened to the heavy rain pummeling the deck. The ship had begun to roll and pitch, lumbering from side to side. He traced the vessel in his mind, picturing how it might hold in a storm. Stubby, like a gigantic steel thumb, it was wide and slow and stable. The only section — aside from the steam funnel — that rose above deck was the tower where the guards and crew quarters were located. Leo took reassurance from the vessel’s age: it must have survived many storms in its lifetime.

  His bunk shook as a wave thumped the side, breaking over the deck — a sloshing noise that carried with it a visual imprint — the deck briefly merging with the sea. Leo sat up. The storm was growing. He was forced to grip the sides of the bunk as the ship lurched violently. Prisoners began crying out as they were shaken off the bunks, cries echoing around the darkness. It had become a disadvantage to be so high. The wooden frame was unstable. The structure wasn’t secured to the hull. The bunks might fall, tipping their occupants to the floor. Leo was about to climb down when a hand grabbed his face.

  With the wind and the waves, the commotion, he hadn’t heard anyone approach. The man’s breath smelled like decay. His voice was gruff:

  — Who are you?

  Sounding authoritative, he was almost certainly a gang leader. Leo was sure the man wasn’t alone: his men must be nearby, on the other bunks, to the sides, underneath. It was impossible to fight: he couldn’t see the man he was fighting.

  — My name is—

  The man cut him off:

  — I’m not interested in your name. I want to know who you are. Why are you here, among us? You’re not a vory. Not a man like me. Maybe you’re a political. But then, I see you doing sit-ups, I see you exercising and I know you’re not a political. They hide in the corner and cry like babies about never seeing their families again. You’re something else. Makes me nervous, not knowing what’s in a person’s heart. I don’t mind if it’s murder and stealing, I don’t even mind if it’s hymns and prayers and goodness, I just like to know. So, I say again, who are you?

  The man seemed entirely indifferent to the fact that the ship was now being tossed like a toy by the storm. The entire bunk was rocking: the only thing keeping it fixed was the weight of the people on it. Prisoners were jumping to the floor, scrambling over each other. Leo tried to reason with the man:

  — How about we talk when this storm’s over?

  — Why? There something you need to do?

  — I need to get off this bunk.

  — You feel that?

  The tip of a knife touched Leo’s stomach.

  Abruptly, the ship lifted up, a movement so sudden and powerful it felt as though the hand of a sea-god were underneath them, pushing them out of the ocean and racing them toward the sky. As suddenly the movement stopped, the velocity vaporized, the watery hand turning to spray, and the Stary Bolshevik fell, plunging straight down.

  The bow smacked into the water. With the force of a detonation, the impact cracked through the ship. With a synchronized snap every bunk splintered and collapsed. For a second Leo was suspended in darkness, falling, with no idea what lay beneath him. He rotated so that he’d land facedown, pushing his hands out toward the floor. There was a crunch of bones breaking. Unsure whether he was injured, whether his bones had broken, he lay still, breathless and dazed. He didn’t feel any pain. Patting the ground underneath him he realized he had landed on another prisoner, across a man’s chest. The noise had been the man’s ribs fracturing. Leo searched for a pulse, only to find a splintered fragment of wood jutting out of the man’s neck.

  As he staggered to his feet, the ship rolled to the side, then back the other way. Someone grabbed his ankles. Worried that it was the nameless, faceless gang leader, he kicked them away, only to realize that it was more likely someone desperate for help. With no time to put right that wrong, the ship rose up again, at an even sharper angle than before, rocketing toward the sky. The smashed bunks, now free to move, slid toward him, piling up. Sharp, lethal fragments pressed against his arms and legs. Prisoners unable to maintain their grip on the sloping floor tumbled down, knocking into Leo, an avalanche of wood and bodies.

  Pushed down by the ragged wall of people and timber, Leo tried blindly, hopelessly, to find something to steady himself, something to grab on to. The ship was at a forty-five-degree angle. Something metallic caught him in the side of the face, Leo fell, tumbling, rolling, until he arrived against the back wall, against the hot timber planks that separated the convicts from the roaring coal engine. The wall was four deep with prisoners tipped from their beds, waiting for the ship’s climb to reverse and slip into the inevitable fall. Groping for anything fixed that they could hold on to, they feared being tossed forward into the unknown. Leo clasped the hull — it was smooth and cold. There was nothing to grip. The ship stopped its upward climb, perched on the crest of a wave.

  Leo was about to be thrown forward. He’d be helpless, everyone behind him landing on top of him, crushing him. Unable to see anything, he tried to remember the layout of the hold. The steps u
p to the deck hatch were his only chance. The ship tipped into a freefall, accelerating down. Leo threw himself in the direction where he guessed the steps were located. He collapsed into something hard — the metal steps — and managed to clasp an arm around them just as the ship’s bow thumped into the water.

  A second detonation-like impact, the force was tremendous. Leo was convinced the entire ship had split apart, a nutshell smashing under the head of a hammer. Waiting for a wall of water, instead he heard the sound of breaking wood, like tree trunks splitting in half. There were screams. Leo’s arm, locked around the step, was yanked so hard, he was sure it had been dislocated. Yet there was no wall of water rushing in. The hull was intact.

  Leo looked behind him and saw smoke. He couldn’t just smell the smoke, he could see it. Where was the light coming from? The noise of the ship’s engine seemed to have intensified. The timber partition separating the convicts from the coal engine had broken apart. The engine room was exposed. At its center was a red, glowing hub surrounded by the smashed debris of bunks and twisted bodies.

  Leo squinted, his eyes adjusting from permanent darkness. The hold was no longer secure: the prisoners — the most dangerous men in the penal system — now had access to the crew quarters and the captain’s deck, which could be reached from the engine room. The officer in charge of keeping the engine running, covered in coal dust, raised his hands, indicating surrender. A convict leapt at him, flinging him against the red-hot engine. The officer screamed: the stink of burning flesh filled the air. He tried to push himself free from the metal but the convict held him fast, gloating as the man was cooked alive, his eyes rolling, gurgling on spit. The jubilant prisoner called out:

  — Take the ship!

  Leo recognized that voice. It was the man on his bunk, the gang leader with the knife, the man who’d wanted him dead.

  SAME DAY

  FLUNG FROM SIDE TO SIDE, Timur zigzagged down the Stary Bolshevik’s narrow corridors, colliding with walls, scrambling to secure the two access doors that led up from the engine room. He’d been in the bridge when the ship had dropped from the crest of a wave, as though it had sailed off a crumbling water-cliff, the bow falling for thirty meters before smashing into the base of an ocean-trough. Timur had been thrown forward, catapulted over the navigation equipment, tumbling to the floor. The vessel’s steel panels reverberated with the frequency of a tuning fork, humming with the impact’s energy. Standing up, looking out the window, all he could see was foaming water rushing toward him — churning gray and white and black — convinced that the ship was sinking, plunging straight down to the bottom, only for the bow to be lifted once again, angled toward the sky.

  Attempting to ascertain the damage, the captain had rung down to the engine room. There was no response — calls went unanswered. There was still power, the engine was still working, the hull couldn’t have been breached. The upward movement of the ship discounted extensive flooding. If the outer hull was intact the only other explanation for the loss of communication was that the timber partition wall must have snapped like a twig. The convicts were no longer secure: they could enter the engine room and climb the stairs, accessing the main tower. If the prisoners reached the upper levels they’d kill everyone and plot a new course for international waters where they’d claim asylum in exchange for anti-Communist propaganda. Five hundred convicts against a crew of thirty of which only twenty were guards.

  Control of the lower levels, those belowdeck, was lost. They couldn’t recapture the engine room or save the crew working in there. However, it was still possible to seal those compartments, trapping the convicts in the lower levels of the ship. From the engine room there were two separate access points. Timur was heading toward the first of the doors. Another group of guards had been dispatched to the second. If either door were open, if either fell into the convicts’ hands, the ship would be lost.

  Turning right and left, hurtling down the last flight of stairs, he was at the base of the tower. He could see the first access door straight ahead: at the end of the corridor. It was unlocked, swinging backward and forward, clanging against the steel walls. The ship veered upward, tilting sharply, throwing Timur forward to his hands and knees. The heavy steel door swung open, revealing a horde of convicts climbing up from the engine room, as many as thirty or forty faces. They saw each other at the same time: the door being the midway point between them, both sides staring at each other across the divide between freedom and captivity.

  The convicts exploded forward. Timur countered, launching himself off the floor, running, leaping into the door just as a mass of hands pressed against the other side, pushing in the opposite direction. There was no way he could hold them for long: his feet were sliding back. They were almost through. He reached for his gun.

  The storm jerked the ship to the side, tipping the convicts off the door while throwing Timur’s weight against it. The door slammed shut. He spun the lock, clamping it tight. Had the storm tilted the ship the other way, Timur would have been thrown to the floor and the convicts would have spilled out over him like a stampeding herd, overwhelming him. Denied freedom, their fists pounded against the door, banging and cursing. But their voices were faint and their blows hopeless. The thick steel door was secure.

  Timur’s relief was temporary, interrupted by the sound of machine-gun fire from the other side of the ship. The convicts must have passed through the second door.

  Running, staggering, past abandoned crew quarters, Timur turned the corner, seeing two officers crouched, firing. Reaching their position, he drew his gun, aiming in the same direction. There were bodies on the floor between them and the second access door, prisoners shot, some alive, motioning for help. The critical door down to the subdeck levels — now the only remaining access point for the convicts — had been wedged open by a plank of wood, protruding from the middle. Even if Timur made a run for the door there was no way to shut it. The officers, panicking, were firing aimlessly, bullets sparking off steel, pinging with lethal randomness around the corridor. Timur gestured for the officers to lower their weapons.

  Pools of water on the floor mimicked the wild movements of the sea, sweeping from one side to the other. The prisoners weren’t pushing forward, remaining safe behind the door. No doubt they were finding it difficult, among their cutthroat team, to conjure up the twenty or so willing to sacrifice their lives by surging forward to seize control of the corridor. At least that many would die before the guards were overpowered.

  Timur took possession of one of the machine guns, aiming at the protruding wood stump. He fired, splintering the wood — walking forward at the same time. The stump was disintegrating under a barrage of steady gunfire. Maintaining the volley of bullets, the wood fragmented. The door could be shut, locked, the final access point closed. Timur sprang forward. Before he could reach the handle, three more stumps of wood were pushed through. There was no way to shut the door. Out of bullets, Timur pulled back.

  Four additional guards had arrived, stationed at the end of the corridor, making seven in total — a pitiful force to hold off five hundred. Since their early losses, the prisoners hadn’t attempted a second advance. If a proportion weren’t prepared to sacrifice their lives, there was no way to progress. They were almost certainly devising another means of attack. One of the officers whispered:

  — We stick our guns in the gap in the door! They don’t have weapons! They’ll drop the wood: we’ll shut the door.

  Three officers nodded, running forward.

  They hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when the door was flung open. Panicked, the officers opened fire — to no avail. The foremost prisoners were using the injured crew as a human shield: burnt bodies carried like battering rams, skinless, charred faces screaming.

  The officer nearest the advance tried to backtrack, his weapon firing uselessly into his colleague. The convict launched the body at him, knocking the officer to the floor. The guards redirected their bullets toward the prisoner
s’ feet. Several fell, but there were too many of them, moving too fast. The column of prisoners continued to advance. In minutes they would control the corridor, from which point they would spread to the rest of the ship. Timur would be lynched. Paralyzed, he couldn’t even fire his handgun. What use were six shots against five hundred? It was as pointless as shooting at the sea.

  Struck by an idea, he turned, hurrying to the outer door, the door that opened onto the deck. He threw it wide open, exposing the wild sea, a dizzy mass of water. Each of the guards wore a safety belt. He clipped his hook to the wire that ran around the tower, a system designed to prevent men from being washed overboard.

  Glancing back at the gunfight, there were only two officers remaining. Scores of prisoners were dead but a seemingly inexhaustible number were packed behind them. Timur called out to the sea, challenging it, rallying it:

  — Come on!

  The ship plunged down, pointing Timur into a deep trough. Then, slowly, the ship rose up. A mountain of water was rolling straight toward him, the crumbling white surf high above, blotting out the sky. It crashed into the side of the ship, flooding the corridor. Timur was swept back, immersed in the sea. Water filled the space entirely. The cold stunned him. He was helpless — unable to move, or think, washed down the corridor.

  His safety hook saved him, pulled him to a standstill. The wave had broken over the ship. The ship countered the movement, tipping back the other way. The water drained away as quickly as it had swept in. Timur fell to the floor, gasping, surveying the results of the flood. The wall of prisoners had been smashed back, some to the floor, most down the steps. Before they were able to recover, he unclipped himself, ran forward, his clothes soaked and heavy, his boots squelching over the shot-up bodies of guards and prisoners, victims of the skirmish. He slammed the door shut, locking it. The subdeck levels were secure.